A History of Them
by Faelady
Summary: After being rescued from her imprisonment, Rin remembers the last time she paid a visit to the hospital courtesy of Akito. The pain she caused Haru and herself at that time comes back to haunt her. Rating upped for mild violence.
1. Reminiscing

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Title: A History of Them: Reminiscing

Author: Faelady

Pairing: Haru x Rin

Disclaimer: Neither the characters nor the manga are mine. Natsuki Takaya owns them both. I'm just borrowing them from her.

AN: Spoilers for anything after the current English release, particularly chapters 104-107. Mainly covers the aftermath/fallout of those chapters, so spoiler references are inevitable. Also, some of my conjectures about their past relationship are probably not canon, but unfortunately there are many details in that area that Takaya never filled in. So don't get horribly upset with me if you spot something that isn't canon, though please do point it out so that I can correct it. This may turn into a chapter fic gulp but if it doesn't, this should be able to stand alone as a one shot.

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"Isuzu's upstairs." Kunimitsu didn't even bother to glance over at Haru as he said it.

"Hnn?" Haru's normally placid expression briefly creased into a frown before smoothing back out, the only indication of his worry.

"She overdid it a little in cleaning today, trying to help around the dojo, and Kazuma convinced her to lie down and take a nap."

Haru nodded briefly in acknowledgment as he removed his shoes in the entryway before heading upstairs to where he knew the guest room was. In the few weeks since Rin had moved in to live with Kazuma, Haru's visits had become a daily event. Usually in the afternoon Haru would appear at the house and wander around until either he found Rin or someone directed him to her. Today he managed to find the guest room without mishap, his building sense of familiarity with Kazuma's home enabling him to navigate it more easily.

He quietly slid open the door, and walked over to sit cross-legged on the floor beside the bed. Haru didn't mind watching Rin sleep, partially because he knew she needed the rest—she was still weak after all she'd gone through, and tired easily—but also because he knew the he was seeing a Rin she let very few, if any, others see. His Rin didn't like being vulnerable. Granted, she minded it less so now than before, but trust still came hard for her.

Haru slid his hand underneath the one she had tucked up near her face; even after two full weeks he needed the contact, the reassurance that she was really here with him, and not one of the despairing dreams he had so often while they were apart. Curled up into a ball, with her hands near her face, Rin still slept like she was protecting herself from any blow life might try to land on her.

'_But given her history--our history—I can't say I blame her,' _Haru mused, as he looked at his love and thought back to all that had passed between them before now. Before times like this, when he could look at her and not have to wonder when it might end.

Haru could remember a time when he didn't know Rin, when he wasn't aware of her as more than the cursed of the Horse.

He couldn't remember a time that he didn't love Rin. When they were children, it was the love of one friend for another. They had been playmates but not confidantes, though he had begun even then to make it his habit to observe people, to read their inner emotions from the subtle changes of their face and body. He knew then that this quiet, self-contained, doe-eye girl had some terrible secret, though he couldn't guess what—and then one day he didn't have to try and guess anymore.

He remembered the chaos of emotions he felt when he found her collapsed on the sidewalk and then raced to Kazuma for help. First and foremost was intense fear for her, but mixed in was wonder that she had somehow managed—even in her condition—not to transform, along with the first stirrings of worry and anger at whatever had caused her collapse. Plus a faint sense of shame that he needed help, that he couldn't save her on his own.

His anger had exploded when her parents came—the very ones who had put her in this condition were now compounding their crimes by abandoning her without a second thought. The dark side of his nature that was born when his own parents laughed at him for being dumb, slow, stupid, came out again in her defense. He raged at them on her behalf, for she was too broken to do anything other than cry. He became her protector then, wanting to shelter her until she healed.

She had mended, much as a broken dish is mended—whole again, but never the same. The cement between the cracks hardened, scarred over, and she matured into a remote, cool beauty whose smiles came only fleetingly. The pain of her rejection evolved into a disinterest in the opinions of most other people. A disinterest that manifested itself in her outrageous clothing choices and lack of friends. He tried to remedy the lack of friendship as much as possible, knocking on her window and dragging her with him on any of his various "adventures" around the city.

He remembered looking at her one day when he was about twelve or thirteen and realizing something had changed, that she had become something more to him. Something as necessary as breathing. She had become his heart. He knew she didn't feel the same at that point. To her, he was still just a friend—younger, shorter, someone who could distract her from her loneliness and isolation. Definitely not a potential boyfriend or lover. So he waited, biding his time until he grew as tall as she was. In the meantime he reveled in being her only friend and confidante, basked in the smiles she gave to only him, and held his words of love locked deep inside.

At fifteen, he finally told her, and watched love battle fear in her face. It was a close thing for him, and seeing that internal battle plain in her expression made him almost catch his breath in the worry that fear would win. Then she smiled at him through her tears, and he bent his head and tasted their salt on her lips. He remembered the joy that rushed through him then. She had become his Rin. _His_. They were together, and they loved.

And for a while, it was beautiful...

Their little islands of time together had been tiny miracles for both of them. Their stolen nights together when Kagura's parents would pretend they didn't notice his presence in the room down the hall and they could sleep all night, wrapped in each other's arms, enjoying the physical closeness that only one Jyunnishi can give another. Those nights were almost more important that the ones spent in passion, because they only served to cement the bond between them. Event to the point where they became so accustomed to one another's presence, so acclimated to each other's touch that if failed to register as something unusual—which in itself was unusual for the Jyuunishi, who touched so rarely and so carefully.

Then Rin had ended up in the hospital. He hadn't known what happened at the time, and he didn't like to think about it for too long now. The ugly hate and anger he felt for Akito was not something he wanted to touch Rin. All he had known at the time was the woman who was his heart claimed to no longer want him, and he had begun to slowly break apart.

They had survived apart. Survived, but not been whole. Rin's sudden and complete rejection had made him doubt—not his love her, but his belief in the fact that somehow they could make it work. That they, despite the curse and all that it entailed, could find a connection with each other, those bonds of love and belonging usually denied those of the cursed.

He believed again now. Knew with certainty that she was his heart, as he once had before she made him doubt.

It still didn't prevent his lingering sense of anger and disappointment with her for valuing herself so little when he valued her so much. Nor did it prevent his anger with himself, his lingering sense of shame.

'_Why did I blind myself then to what I was asking of you, love?'_ Haru wondered to himself. _'Maybe Akito was right, and I didn't want to see, didn't want to know, because that meant acknowledging both the risk I asked you to take and your fears that I ignored. Love, I was so close to throwing you away—throwing away your sacrifice and dragging her into Hell with me. If Kureno hadn't said what he did, we both might have been lost.'_

Rin stirred restlessly, startling Haru out of his contemplation and making him finally notice that his hand had gone to sleep. Her eyes slid open and blinked drowsily for a moment before focusing on his face.

She gripped his hand, smiling sleepily up at him, and it struck him again how much she had changed since he picked her up off the sidewalk and welcomed her home. Changed in ways that even he, who knew her best, was just beginning to see.

Her eyes were warm and calm. The fire that made her Rin, the one that he loved, was still there, but subtly changed. What once had been an inferno, a rage of need and want, was now a carefully banked blaze—as hot as before, but slightly more controlled. None of her fierce determination had been lost, only tempered, refined to rest more easily beneath her skin.

He suspected that it wasn't completely over for them—the trials they had gone through. They were different people now than they had been, changes forged in separate fires of loneliness and pain. Those new people were going to have to learn each other anew, and learn to mesh what had been with what would be. It wasn't going to be easy for them, he knew, but it would be worthwhile.

'_I always did like a challenge,'_ Haru mused to himself as he looked into the face of the woman who was his past, present, and future.

'_Why else would I have fallen in love with her?'_


	2. Living Memories

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Title: A History of Them: Living Memories

AN: Obviously much of this fic is purely my imagination filling in some blanks. An offhand comment by Haru in vol. 8 got me wondering what made Rin suddenly decide to break up with him. Months later, this is what came out. Odds are, we're never going to find out what actually happened. Anyway, if anyone spots any canon errors, let me know. This was written with hazy memories of reading Shadow's wonderful translations of the chapter where Rin gets pushed out the window (from before all her translations became unavailable due to rampant idiocy). So obviously it's been a while, and mistakes are possible. Chapter 96 spoiler not in effect, because Rin doesn't know. Also, I know Akito is painted darkly in this fic, but it's because in my opinion Akito serves as something of a nightmare figure for both Haru and Rin, given their personal experiences (especially Rin's) with the effects of Akito's anger. I am in no way character bashing Akito. This is my interpretation of Rin's view of the character. Any and all feedback is welcome, especially constructive criticism.

Disclaimer: All characters are property of Natsuki Takaya, Hakusensha, Tokyopop, and FUNimation and are used without permission.

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Rin woke with a start, disoriented. Her dreams tonight had been of times past, and so vivid that she had almost expected to see the hospital walls around her when she woke up instead of the soothing calmness of Kazuma's guest room. She wrinkled her nose in disgust at the short, sweat-damp strands of hair clinging to the back of her neck and the clammy feel of pillow underneath her head, before propping herself up enough to flip it over. Even after she lay back down on the now comfortably dry pillow, she stared open-eyed into the darkness, unable to drift back off to sleep.

She'd had nightmares on a regular basis for a very long time. Of course, she'd had the usual childhood nightmares about monsters under the bed and in the closet—until the monsters began wearing her parents' faces. After that, her nightmares became much more concrete; in fact, became mere replays of what was already happening to her.

Tonight's dream hadn't featured her parents but rather Akito. She supposed that in itself qualified it as a nightmare, given her recent experiences with the head of the Sohma clan. This particular dream though, had been about a time farther in the past, about the first time Akito had helped her into a hospital.

Rin didn't like to recall those days voluntarily, much less experience them all over again in living color at night. She supposed it had been inevitable, though, given that it had only been a week ago that she walked out of the hospital she had been taken to after Kureno took her from the cat's rooms. She had collapsed, and Haru had found her in an ironic mirror of one of the events that started her down this path so many years before. She had walked that road in her hallucinations that day, and continued to do so in her dreams.

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The last thing she remembered before the impact was falling, and wishing Haru would be there to pick her up when she hit. Then she woke in the hospital, aches encompassing the whole of her body and sharp pain centered on her right shoulder. It was a place uncomfortably familiar for her, a place that held nothing but bad memories of the times she had been there before.

Haru was a regular visitor from the beginning, and it was so easy to fall into the familiar pattern of learning on him for comfort, for support, for everything. Haru was her distraction from the pain of heart and body, from the weight of the past that crushed around her here. And when it all became too unbearable to stay in the hospital, he would come and sneak her out. He took care of her—much as he had always done, she realized now when she let herself think about it.

She knew what she had to do, needed to do for Haru's sake, and because it was what Akito wanted. But the only time she felt better was when Haru was there, so it was easy to hang on a little longer, to put off what she knew she had to do.

Maybe that's why she said what she did that day. It had been her only chance to take care of him, to protect him for once. She thought it only briefly before her mind shied away from the memories. The rage, the push, the sickening drop—they were too close, too fresh, the scar too newly healed to be poked at. She pushed them back, unable to bear looking at them. Unable to bear the memory of that face, twisted with disgust and anger. Unable to bear the memory of those words, like splinters of glass driving into her heart, piercing her hidden doubts and vulnerabilities.

"You have a visitor!" the nurse's falsely effervescent voice announced as the door opened after a brief knock.

The unwelcome presence of the overly cheerful nurse was overshadowed by her feelings of terror and hatred for the dark-haired, slim figure that slid into the room behind her.

Akito.

Fear made her flush first hot and then cold, a feeling accompanied by a strange buzzing noise in her head and the tightening of her stomach that was the usual prelude to nausea. She could see Akito speaking to the nurse, but couldn't discern what they were saying as the world wavered around her. The nurse left without a glance in her direction, and then all of Akito's attention focused on her.

Rin felt crystallized, as if somehow Akito's gaze had the power to turn her body into stone. Almost literally unable to speak, she sat there huddled inside herself as he glided towards her, stopping just short of the foot of the bed.

"You know, it might be better if you had died. You're such a burden, always causing others problems. You should try harder not to be so troublesome."

"Yes, Akito." Her voice came automatically, the answer popping out unbidden. Survival instincts honed by her parents but unused for the past several years took over. Her mouth providing the answers Akito wanted to hear, answers designed to placate, to calm, to divert the rage away from physical anger.

She felt cold and small, the pain radiating from her shoulder and stomach beginning to befuddle her mind. For a long moment she wandered the past, reliving another scene much like this one.

'_Mommy, I'll be a good girl from now on, I promise. I won't cause any more trouble.'_

In memory and in flesh she felt the smack of a hand across her cheek.

"Are you even listening to me, you stupid creature? I shouldn't have to remind you again of your place!"

Her mother's face blurred into Akito's as she blinked her eyes into focus.

"I'm glad to see you've learned your lesson, Isuzu, about staying away from what belongs to me. And after all, doesn't he deserve better than something worthless like you?" The last had been delivered in a gentle, modulated, almost loving tone that was the polar opposite of the vindictive hatred of earlier. It only served to make the words even more terrifying, reminding her of the gentleness with which Akito had spoken before the push.

"Yes, Akito."

It went on and on, and by the time Akito stalked out, Rin was reduced to existing in a familiar haze she hadn't experienced since the last time her parents beat her. She could taste the bile burning in the back of her throat and felt the weighty knots of stress in her stomach. The door closed behind Akito with a sharp click that echoed oddly in Rin's ears. She sat there, frozen and numb, for how long she didn't know.

As the shock began to wear away, she started, slowly and surely, to build the walls she was going to need to keep Haru safe, from her and from _him._ She couldn't afford to allow herself the luxury of burdening him any longer.

Her slow resolve built, brick by imaginary brick, to form a shaky wall around her emotions. Another kind of detachment settled around her, taking the place of the shock that had insulated her from Akito's rage, and formed an almost tangible presence in the room as she waited.

This time the door opened quietly, stealthily, indicating that the person on the other side was obviously no nurse. Haru was here.

One fist clenched involuntarily in her lap despite her efforts at calm and detachment, as he snuck into the room. The affectionate smile reserved for her alone played on his lips and lit his beautiful brown eyes as he walked towards the hospital bed.

As she said the words and watched pain and disbelief chase themselves over his face, she experienced this strange feeling of weightlessness. The only thing she had to compare it to was the moment right after she left the window. Freefall. She had let go of her final support and was falling helplessly towards the ground, waiting to hit.

This time she was going to stand back up on her own.

She had taken so much from him. Too much. She had to do something for him now, whatever the cost to herself. She couldn't allow herself to depend on him anymore, for his own sake.

Soon enough the ground would come up beneath her and she would walk on her own away from him. She would do what was best for both of them. She knew she must learn do without Haru's support, even if it destroyed her. She would do anything that must be done to secure his ultimate safety, to give him the last and only gift she could give.

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Rin felt her pillow grow damp again, this time from silent, bitter tears shed at the pain she had caused both of them. She had cost both of them so much, but in the end had gained them nothing. Nothing but grief.

Despite all that, somehow they had managed to find each other again, but the possibility of hope for them was still too new, too fragile.

Still, she didn't wish she could undo what she had done then. She would still sacrifice anything to keep him safe, even her own future. She had made that choice over and over again, and would continue to choose the same. If they were to move forward, one day soon she would have to tell him why she hurt him. And she would have to tell him that she'd gladly do it again.


End file.
